Category Archives: Sweet

The official name in English is French Bread and the reason why I call it Lost Paradise is because French Bread is typically the kind of dishes cooked by your mother or grand mother that you loved when you were little but that you never remember to do for your own children. Today was another good example when I heard a nanny saying to the 2 children she was taking care of “of course Pain Perdu how come I have not baked any to you yet. My mum used to bake some for me and I loved it” when I was feeding Blondie and Bonny with it for tea. Same thing happened a while ago when I served French Bread to some friends.

Here is the recipe.:

Old dry bread, any type cut into slices.

50 cl of warm milk in which I put fresh vanilla pod cut into 2, let them brew for a while.

stir the milk with the eggs, soak slices of bread in the mixture for as long as bread becomes softer.

In a pan melt butter and fry each slice of bread on both sides until they become golden.

I usuall serve French Bread for my girls tea or for our family dessert. In our family, Blue Eyes and the girls usually eat it with sugar spread on top. But my dream is to eat it with fresh berries on top and plain yogurt.

Following suggestions of my mum, I have made this desert when my parents were here recently. Well, I would not have imagined that it was so simple to bake a charlotte. Charlotte aux poires et au chocolat is the perfect family dessert and it should look like this!

Split eggs yolks from whites. Mix yolks with sugar until the mixture becomes homogeneous. Add softened butter and softened and cooled down chocolate. Stir well until you obtain a chocolate mousse (by the way if you decide not to continue you’ve just got yourself a very nice chocolate mousse for tonight’s dessert!)

Whisk egg whites with pinch of salt until they become chantilly (my food processor gave up the ghost) so I had to do it manually and I think that it is actually much better. Unlike what would be commonly shared, it is not about rapidity of movement but about how much air you incorporate at once. Whisk movement does not have to be fast but regular and ample.

Take a mould (preferably rond and deep), I did not have any so I used a rectangle and deep one. Take your biscuits, dip them in water with a dash of brandy (or you can use the syrup of the pears). Then apply them next to eachother in the bottom and on the side of the mould, then pour the chocolate mixture, drop some chunks of pears (you can also pour a bit of chocolate mixture, then do a layer of pears, then chocolate mousse again, and so on and so forth until your reach the top of your mould).

Place in the fridge for 2 hours but that’s what I did and it was not enough; So I would say for at least 6 hours until the chocolate mixture hardens. Then remove from the mould on a large plate.

Next time I will try to add more chocolate and less sugar in my chocolate mousse preparation.

Me & The Girls

(*) you can easily prepare your own pears in syrup; just remove the skin from pears cut them into 2. place them in boiling water with sugar, vanilla pod/extract and a dash of alcohol for 5 to 10 min.